Lord Wimsey series

[Vivia]

Anyone read them? What do you think of Lord Wimsey as a character? I'm currently reading the first novel Whose Body? and Five Red Herrings.
After reading Gaudy Night, that contains the least gaudy night, I have changed my mind about him. I like him a lot but I don't relate to him that much.
Last year I listened to four of the BBC audio dramas, problem is that I don't remember much of them. I have only the vaguest memory of Clouds of Witness. I'll read all the books.

Whose Body?: the first in the series. It's good for a first novel, we get to see a little more of his personality. He is somewhat reasonable in the story. A rather gruesome plot, a criminal with a twisted mind, what we would call a psychopath today. Very interesting that many ideas of the criminal mind were already set. Agatha Christie doesn't have much of this type of psychological insight, with her stories it's easy to dismiss as things from yesteryear, but they weren't.

Cloud of Witness:

Unnatural Death:

The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club:

Five Red Herrings: good so far. Tedious as the mystery and the red herrings are unveiled. The Scottish accents as it's written takes some effort to read for me. Lord Wimsey doesn't take centre stage. I love Bunter.

Gaudy Night: my favourite Lord Wimsey story so far, with Harriet Vane, if a little old-fashioned in parts, the setting and ideas, in others it had fairly interesting feminist concepts without being moral or preachy.*






*copied from the Book Challenge 2013.

[Liliedhe]

I've read Whose Body and Clouds of Witness. I liked them a lot. I always think I should get another one and then never do

Whimsey is a fascinating character. Poor boy. ^^

[Vivia]

Do it, read another one. I highly recommend Gaudy Night and Murder Must Advertise.

Lord Wimsey is an interesting character. There are times when I think Sayers goes too far in trying to write him as an eccentric character, she must have been blinded by love for her own creation. His charming traits easily turns into annoying traits depending on the story. I like that he isn't young, but neither as old as Christie's Poirot.

[Liliedhe]

I like how damaged he is. But that's probably just me. I like protagonists I want to hug. ^^

[Vivia]

I like that about him. Sayers was ahead of her time in that sense, she dared write a sensitive male character.
I grew up with Christie's novel and some of the sentiments are slightly laughable for us today, people always murder for money in her stories or they're pure 'ebil'. It changed in her later books somewhat. Sayers isn't above writing about the darker side of human nature in general.